Up
It was a given Up was going to be the weekend’s No. 1 movie. It was not a given it was going to be bigger, all-time, than all but two Pixar movies.
But it was.
The animated tale of a 78-year-old curmudgeon grossed an estimated $68.2 million Friday-Sunday, blowing past the likes of WALL-E and Cars.
Elsewhere, Star Trek hit a new milestone, Terminator Salvation fell hard and fast, and Drag Me to Hell, Sam Raimi’s return to gore, was no Spider-Man. Or Catwoman, for that matter.
Drilling down into the numbers:
• So are senior citizens really more marketable than talking race cars? “I think the sell was easier than that,” Disney distribution president Chuck Viane said today. “We sold a great story. We showed a great comedy.”
• Among Disney/Pixar’s nine wide-release debuts, Up ranks behind only The Incredibles ($70.5 million) and Finding Nemo ($70.3 million). Its weekend was a $5 million improvement over last summer’s WALL-E.
• Up scored the year’s first A-plus from moviegoers polled by CinemaScore, Disney said.
• Drag Me to Hell ($16.6 million) did OK but was unable to drag down Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian ($25.5 million). The horror movie settled for third place, while the Stiller comedy, its crown usurped by Up, took second.
• On the upside, Drag Me to Hell is Raimi’s top-opening film to not take place at the Daily Bugle. On the downside, even Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, to name a fellow R-rated flick, bowed with more money.
• Battle of the Smithsonian and Angels & Demons ($11.2 million) became the eighth and the ninth 2009 films, respectively, to gross at least $100 million. Smithsonian’s two-weekend take stands at $105.3 million. After three weekends, Angels & Demons has grossed $104.8 million.
• On Wednesday, Star Trek overtook Monsters vs. Aliens as the year’s top-grossing movie. On Friday, the sci-fi reboot became the year’s first $200 million movie. As of today, its overall haul is estimated at $209.5 million.
• With Up around, Monsters vs. Aliens lost more than half its theaters. It managed another $315,000 and fell out of the Top 10 after a nine-weekend run.
• Terminator Salvation ($16.1 million) suffered the biggest second-week drop of any Terminator movie, including the unbeloved third installment: 62 percent.
